---

Nasty words on mother
of all lists

THIS is the Star-Bulletin, and we are on top of the news. And so it should be no surprise that our Rod Antone has obtained the list of names you can't wear across your shoulders if you order a "custom" NFL jersey. I didn't ask him how he got it (the Internet). But you can't keep secrets from the Star-Bulletin.

"Is this the story from a month ago?" an NFL official asked.

Anyway.

Rod was sitting on a gold mine of information. Then his boss walked by.

"Why do you have a list of swear words on your desk?" Rod's boss asked.

So Rod did the next logical thing. He gave the list to me.

Now I have a list of swear words on my desk.

To be honest, this just doesn't look good. I was worried someone might walk by and see it. Like my boss. And so I wrote on it: "This is the list of names banned from the back of NFL 'custom' jerseys." Just so everyone was clear.

I was not a disgusting pig, but doing serious sports-column research.

But even that wasn't enough, with this list. This list is not for the naked eye. These words -- one after another, in alphabetical order, enough to make your eyes pop -- needed more context.

"Please don't file a lawsuit," I wrote.

This list first came to light, of course, when a Louisiana woman tried to order her very own custom Patriots jersey just after the Super Bowl, but the NFL wouldn't let her. The name she'd wanted on her shirt -- "Gay" -- was "naughty," she was told. The NFL wouldn't allow it.

This was stupid, because she wanted the shirt to show her excitement about New England rookie cornerback Randall Gay. She is a professor and he is her former student. And she wasn't making any statement other than the pride she felt for her former student. It was the guy's name. He was her favorite player.

No dice, the NFL said, at first. They had drawn a line.

Finally, somebody with some common sense relented and she got her shirt. And the name is now legal for the back of your jersey, if you want it. But the existence of the list got out. And if "Gay" was unacceptable, then what else can't you say?

Oh, boy.

Today, thanks to Rod, I have a copy of that list. (For research purposes only, of course.) This list would blow your mind. I have never seen such a combination of creativity and profanity. Some of it, I don't even know what it means.

Ted Williams, in his prime, could hold no candle to this list. Beavis and Butt-Head would be blown away.

Many of these names are really, really, really awful.

Some of them are really, really, really awful, yet funny.

A seventh-grade boy would kill to get his hands on this list.

It pretty much reads like the screenplay for the movie the kids were watching in the "South Park" movie. It is "Terrence and Philip" without the musical score.

But what struck me weren't the worst ones, but the gentler (if juvenile) words and phrases someone thought needed to be specifically banned.

Like "Arse," for example.

And "I Love Beer" (alternate spelling: "I Luv Beer") and "He Hate Me" and, brace yourself, "Boobies."

All banned. All on the list.

"Drunk"? Descriptive, maybe, but not allowed.

"Hell Yes"? Hell no (also off limits).

One was especially puzzling. "Gonzagas." What does the NFL have against a nice little Catholic college with a good basketball team?

Then it hit me. It's a typo. No, no, NFL -- it's spelled "Gazongas."

The question is, how in the world did they even come up with some of this? Did people really try to request shirts with these mind-boggling names on the back? Is there a person with the NFL -- an intern, perhaps -- whose job it is to just think up the worst possible stuff he can think of and make a list?

So I called the NFL offices in New York. No, they said. This is not a list of their creation, but a standard collection of "naughty words" used by many companies that sell personalized merchandise on the Internet. No, there is no NFL Department of Dirty Words. No, Paul Tagliabue is not leaning back on his chair with his feet on his desk shaking his brain in order to come up with the most creative Beavis curses he can possibly think of.

You know, I was really hoping for that last one.